Monday, May 5, 2014

So-Far-Right-It's-Wrong Kinda Thinking

A couple of really scary things happened
this week. They’re not Freddie Krueger scary, more like Michele Bachmann scary
in the worst sense of her Tea Party mentality. It’s the kind of scary that
results in people talking about slippery slopes and other metaphors for the
undermining of the Constitution.

Now, here’s a guy who is supposed to be
sworn to uphold the Constitution of the United States while meting out fair and
impartial justice to those who would approach the bench.One might think a guy like that would be
temperate in his official views and cautious about what he says and does in public. But you
would be wrong.

Back in January, Judge Moore,
speaking at a luncheon sponsored by Pro-Life Mississippi, was videotaped
saying:

“Everybody, to include the U.S. Supreme Court, has been
deceived as to one little word in the First Amendment called ‘religion.' They
can't define it They can't define it the way Mason, Madison and even the United
State Supreme Court defined it, 'the duties we owe to the creator and the
manner of discharging it.' They don’t want to do that, because that
acknowledges a creator god. Buddha didn't create us. Mohammed didn't create us.
It's the god of the Holy Scriptures...They didn't bring a Koran over on the
pilgrim ship, Mayflower. Let's get real. Let's go back and learn our
history."

If one were of a mind
to diagram that quote for elements of stupidity, one would be at it for quite a
while.The man is a bigot, to say the
least, and no better than the Taliban or al-Qaeda . His lack of knowledge about
other religions screams volumes and makes one wonder how anyone with so little
fundamental knowledge made it to being Chief Justice. If it wasn't so chilling a remark it would be comic. But it was and it is.

This might be a
tempest in a teapot were it not for good ol’ SCOTUS.The Supremes, by a 5-to-4 majority, struck
down a lower court’s ruling about prayers being offered at a town council
meeting. Now, despite what Faux News and other mentally masturbatory news
organs say, the suit was NOT about removing prayer completely, but about just
how religious a public prayer can be. Now that we have that clear…

On PBS NewsHour,
Marcia Colye explained it well:

…these two residents claimed that the prayers were almost
exclusively Christian in nature, and that violated the First Amendment’s
prohibition on government establishing a religion.

The lower federal appellate court here agreed with them. They
said the overwhelming Christian nature of the prayers for nearly a decade gave
the appearance of government endorsing religion, which violates the First
Amendment. So the town brought the appeal to the Supreme Court.

Justice Kennedy,
writing for the majority said the court could not comment on the religiosity of
the prayers, that to do so would be skirting religious censorship. It would put
the courts in the position of having to analyze prayer and that was out of its
scope. Of course, Justice Sotomayor sided with the three Jews, Justices
Ginsburg, Breyer, and Kagan. Justice
Kagan, in writing for the minority, said that there was no apparent attempt to
open the delivery of the convocation to other faiths or points of view, and
this came close to presenting a clear bias in favor of Christianity.

None of that is particularly scary.

Tweedledumb and Tweedledumber

Here comes the really scary part: it's what came out of Justices
Scalia and his cohort in so-far-right-it’s-wrong thinking, Clownence Thomas. In their view, the Constitution is solely a Federal document. They take the very first line literally:

“Congress
shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the
free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or
the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government
for a redress of grievances.

The operative word
in that sentence is CONGRESS, folks.
Both of these fine fellas are of the opinion that the Constitution prohibits
CONGRESS from establishing a preferred religion on the federal level, but it does NOT prevent the states
themselves from doing it.

Ms. Coyle, in
reporting the story, added….and this is the real important part:

PBS's Marcia Coyle

Justice Thomas, first of all, repeated a
longstanding belief of his that the First Amendment’s establishment clause
doesn’t apply to the states, to states or local government, because the
prohibition, he says, in the First Amendment’s text is on Congress. Congress
shall make no law establishing or regarding the establishment of religion.

And he said that probably
prevents Congress from establishing a national [religion] … But the text
suggests that Congress cannot interfere with state establishments of religion.

Probably was the word he used. Probably prevent.....Really?

Michele B. and her little rightwing nut friends are gonna run with that one. What if states like Texas or Alabama or
Mississippi suddenly found themselves with the ability to establish a state
sponsored religion?

If one can conclude that
SCOTUS has been bought and paid for by PACs and other deep pocketed groups, can
one not, by extension see where the Roberts Court might stand aside in the
establishment of state sponsored religion because they have deemed it a states’
rights issue? This is possibly the most slippery slope one can imagine. If you
strip away the separation between church and state, and leave it up to the
states to determine local religion, where does it stop? If your state is
Lutheran, can Jewish kids stay home from school on the High Holy Days, or is that
now prohibited? Can Catholic kids come to school with ashes on the foreheads on
Ash Wednesday….or is that verboten, too?

"The man is a bigot, to say the least, and no better than the Taliban or al-Qaeda." Do you honestly believe that? Is mass murder, rape, and torture "no worse than" making a statement you find offensive or holding views that you find wrong?

The opinions Scalia and Thomas have become farcical - at least it is only the two of them who sign on. Scalia is 78, Thomas is 65. Our nation is over two hundred, but it remains to be seen that it can outlive these two right-wing zealots and their fanatics. Scalia has made a mockery of his position in recent years, becoming more and more radical, seemingly daring the media to criticize him. For most of his time on the bench though, he's at least been rational (although wrong). But recently he crossed the line in a major way, mis-citing an opinion HE wrote in a scathing dissent in which he blasts the majority. He's now a caricature of a Supreme Court Justice. Thomas on the other hand has always been a weird bird. He didn't ask a question during oral argument for nearly seven years. While questions aren't required, he stands in sharp contrast to his contemporaries. His views are scarcely mainstream and he seems to make efforts to lessen the authority of the federal government at every chance. His dissents often seem odd and based on Tea Party websites, but they have the effect of the highest jurisprudence in the land. These two men will be on the court for as long as necessary so that they can insure they are replaced by right wingnuts like themselves. The Oompa Loompa House Leader and his Senate Minority counterpart try to do damage, but really they just prevent things from happening. Scalia and Thomas have the ability to change the world. Are they terrorists? No. But then again, they may have more power to do extreme damage large swaths of the American public than any terrorist organization. We've seen how a terrorist act can change our lives, but the greatest impact is short-lived. When the Supreme Court rules, we are stuck with it for years, maybe decades, even if the opinion is clearly wrong. I believe in the rule of law, but that doesn't mean I always have faith in the men and women charged with interpreting it.

So the judges are presently willing to give priority to the States' rights, above Congress, if only in order to sidestep the First Amendment... I'm on the side of General George H. Thomas. During the Civil War and after the battle of Missionary Ridge (1863), when a chaplain asked him whether the dead should be sorted and buried by state, General Thomas replied "Mix 'em up. I'm tired of states' rights." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Missionary_Ridge(I would hope that General Thomas' remark would serve to establish a precedent. And I am not even an American citizen! I'm temporarily here because of an error.)

LINGUA GALACTICA

DREAM DANCER

About Me

I am a widow, a mother, a mother-in-law, a daughter, a daughter-in-law, a grandmother, and I guess since I also have a grandpuppy, that makes me a grandbitch. On the other side of living, I'm playwright, director, and novelist. I have the requisite day job for insurance and steady taxable income. You can now like me on Facebook now, too - just put THE WIFELY PERSON in your search box! https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Wifely-Person/163546490391811 OR write to me at thewifelyperson@gmail.com